


Colors of the Sunset

by Kheru



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Pollination without incest, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmates, Strawberry Sunrise Pollination
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:15:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25188538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kheru/pseuds/Kheru
Summary: Everyone knew how soulmates worked. It was such an important part of life! Once you met your soulmate, you would finally be able to see the colours of the world around you, starting with the colour of their Aura. Simple enough, and unmistakable, right?Or so most people think.In reality, soulmates are a bit trickier. Sometimes you think you found them, and you haven't. Sometimes you don't notice they're right beside you. Sometimes you're born colourblind, and there is absolutely no way to tell. Sometimes, things you thought impossible just happen.
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Ruby Rose, Blake Belladonna/Ruby Rose/Weiss Schnee/Yang Xiao Long, Blake Belladonna/Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long, Ruby Rose/Weiss Schnee, Weiss Schnee/Yang Xiao Long
Comments: 8
Kudos: 119





	Colors of the Sunset

**Author's Note:**

> This spiralled out of my control surprisingly fast. It was a simple idea that I wanted to put on the page, and then... it went on, and on, and on. Pretty fluffy, very self-indulgent, I hope you'll like this small story

“You know, my mother used to say… she used to say that soulmates are not always found. That you can’t just wait around for them to appear out of thin air, that you had to work for them to be revealed.”

A brief nod, a supportive look. Blake sniffled, hating that she could see her reddened eyes reflecting in the darkened window she was leaning against. Hating the very colour laid there, almost as much as she hated the way her voice had broken. She knew Yang was somewhere at her right, just in her peripheral vision –

She made no effort to look at her directly. She was still the same, familiar and kind Yang… But she wasn’t sure she could hold on under that gentle, caring gaze of hers. Explaining the reason of her freaking out would be tough enough without constantly being tempted to marvel at the golden hues of her mane.

“She said sometimes you had to search, and sometimes you just had to give a chance to people. And I believed her, so much that I decided that I would work as hard as I could, not to find but make my soulmate. I was so, so sure I had already found him…”

“Him?” Once again. Gentle, soft, not pressing but encouraging. She sent a glance toward the blonde girl, suddenly wondering if she had any idea how amazing she was.

“Adam Taurus. He was… I guess I could say my mentor in the White Fang. I was young and stupid, and he was charming and determined. I looked up to him. I was… infatuated. I thought it was love, at the time. I was wrong.”

“What happened?”

“I was too damn stubborn for my own good is what happened,” she spat more than spoke, angry at herself for being so blind. She sighed, knowing that nothing she could do would erase her past choices. “So when he said he loved me, and nothing happened, I took it as a challenge. I decided that I’d just have to work at it, that there was no way he wasn’t my soulmate, and I kept trying, again and again, and again. All the while, he… well, I don’t think I have to tell you what he did with the White Fang in the meantime. The news covered it enough.”

A small, surprised sound. She let out a low, bitter chuckle.

“Funny isn’t it? I was so busy trying to force some colour in my little black and white world, I didn’t even stop to see the atrocities around me. I’d say he did some awful things, but the truth is, at that time there was no ‘him’ or ‘me’. Only ‘we’. So yeah, we did some terrible things. And I didn’t just stand by and watch, I broke in and stole and cheered.”

A chill went through her spine, and she hugged her knees slightly closer to her chest. She had seen Yang’s slightly extended hand from the corner of her eyes but stubbornly cowed from it. At this point, she wasn’t even sure if she was shaking because of the cold or because of the tears trying desperately to escape her eyes. She wondered, for the millionth time, why she was even saying all of that.

One look at the golden hair cascading around Yang’s face told it all. Well, almost all… part of it was also the concern in Weiss’ sky blue eye, and the worried wringing of Ruby’s red cape, ever so slightly behind her sister.

“So… you noticed something wasn’t right? Since it wasn’t working?” the young leader tried tentatively, her voice ever so frail.

“No Ruby. I didn’t notice a thing, because it didn’t work. I… I wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t worked. The truth is, my mother is right. If you work hard enough, you can make your own soulmate. I was just wrong on everything else.”

Brief glance. Worried expressions. She refrained a wince, very much disliking how many negative emotions she had brought in their small dorm.

“Weiss, do you remember the Dust train attack in Forever Fall?”

“The ‘unsuccessful’ one? Yes, I do. Everyone kept saying that the security had been able to bring back everything under control, but I overheard my father talking… The security had been utterly floored, wiped clean. We only lost the last wagon, and no one knew why or how.” A brief pause, as the heiress pensively replaced a strand of hair behind her ear. “Wait, why are you bringing that up?”

She took a deep breath, resolute to tell her story despite the disbelief and hurt she could almost feel in Weiss’ voice.

“Because I know exactly what happened. I was there. I- I detached the last wagon from the train. It was the only way I had of stopping him, the only way to make sure he wouldn’t murder the entire crew in cold blood.” She raised a hand, silencing the shocked ‘WHAT?’ she had felt coming, before sighing. “Please, just, let me finish. I’m not sure I could tell it all if I stopped.”

There was no further interruption, aside from a sharp intake of air, although she couldn’t tell which of her three teammates it had emanated from. Letting her head rest against the windowpane with a soft ‘thud’, she felt her eyes cloud with memories as she recalled that fateful day.

“His soul is red. I know that, because it worked, because I was stubborn enough that I ended up actually seeing the colour. I remember how overjoyed I was when it started to show. I had a small pamphlet about soulmates you see, one of those papers with splotches of colours and the name underneath. I was so used to seeing it all monochrome, at first I didn’t even realise that it wasn’t anymore. And then he came back to the camp that night, I…” she bit her lip, almost drawing blood. “I was about to tell him the good news, I was just so happy. That’s when I saw it… I had never really noticed before because he always wore dark outfits, dark gloves…”

“What did you see?”

“He was covered in blood.” She wasn’t even sure which of the three had asked, but it mattered little. “Head to toe, there was just so much red covering his clothes, even his blade was crimson. And I just.. Deep down I think I always knew. He smelled of blood more often than not, but I just kept telling myself it was his, that he’d been hurt during his mission, that he’d heroically shielded someone from a blow…”

Another dry chuckle escaped her.

“I was an idiot. He was covered in blood, and there wasn’t a single cut on him. This evening, it finally dawned on me what he had been doing all along, what I had been a part of. I was so horrified… I was utterly terrified of what I had done, what he could make me do. I never killed anyone, but there was a time I wouldn’t have even thought about stealing, and I just knew it was just a matter of time if I stayed. So the next day, when we got onto that train, I made a decision. He didn’t notice a thing at first, didn’t notice how appalled I was that he intended to explode the wagons with the crews. Didn’t notice, or didn’t care.” She took a deep, shaky breath and turned her tear-filled eyes toward her team, knowing she couldn’t push back their judgment any longer. “So I ran. I cut the last wagon, left him there with his rage, and I ran, as far away as I could. I was so, so scared he would find me… every single bit of red just fuelled my paranoia. Eventually, it all started to fade away again, slowly, until all I could see was black, white and grayscale. It was dull, painfully dull, but I didn’t want to see red ever again.”

The silence that followed was deafening, each four of the girls in the room visibly struggling to assess what had just been said. Which made it all the more surprising when Weiss’ voice rose very softly, without an ounce of judgment or anger.

“That was a lot, truly. And I don’t mean to derail, because Blake, trust me we WILL talk about this later, but… I just don’t understand how that explains your previous panic attack?”

Taken aback, it took Blake a good second of confused blinking before coherent thoughts came back to her mind. With them came a slight rush of affection for the heiress that had changed, oh so much… She let out a small, nervous smile, letting her gaze wander outside while she searched for a sensible way to bring up the subject. She opened her mouth, before freezing slightly, barely believing her eyes as the entire sky slowly changed colours.

Had it always been the same colour as Weiss’ eye?

Shutting her mouth and sending several brief and increasingly nervous glances toward the heiress, she noticed that it wasn’t exactly the same tint. She felt a slight heat creep upon her cheeks, with an overarching dread as she realised exactly what that meant and in how much of a mess she was. She took yet another deep breath, briefly wondering how she wasn’t hyperventilating yet but needing to ground herself all the same, before pointing at Ruby weakly.

“Your cape is red.” She blurted out, fast enough that her nerves couldn’t stop her, quickly averting her eyes as she did her best to not bury her face in her knees.

“What does that mean?” Yang briefly asked, looking utterly puzzled. “Is he, like, close enough that you’re seeing red again? Is that a thing?”

“Maybe?” she latched onto that explanation, knowing that it wasn’t the truth but unwilling to disprove it quite yet. “I don’t know… I don’t know how any of that works.”

“I don’t think that’s it, sis’…” All three of them turned their attention to Ruby, who was now bouncing on her feet slightly, nervousness radiating off her in waves as she looked… well, anywhere but at Blake. “I didn’t say anything because of the whole panic thing but, I, uh…”

Her voice gradually drowned into her own mumbling, while Blake felt her heart skip a beat. Then two. While Yang and Weiss exchanged a worried glance, she felt her own nerves skyrocket as her mind whispered to her the only reason Ruby would have of speaking up now, the only reason she could be both that nervous and yet desperately trying to say what was on her mind. The exact same reason that had pushed her to tell her story a few minutes ago.

“I’m seeing something too… There, I said it.” Ruby abruptly said, interrupting her train of thoughts. “I don’t know what colour it is, I’m not even sure it’s an actual colour, I just… Sis’, your eyes and your thingy around your ankle. They look… different.”

“What does that even- Oh. Ohhhhhh.”

Yang fell silent, glancing at Ruby, then at Blake, and then at Ruby again as the piece fell in place in her mind. For a second, Blake saw the briefest of sadness shadow Yang’s eyes, and she felt her heart sink at the heartbroken look she soon hid behind a smile.

“Well, congrats on finding your soulmate sis’!” she quickly hid her hurt behind a radiant smile directed at both their team leader and her partner, all trace of it disappearing so quickly it could have been nothing but a hallucination.

“That’s not possible,” Weiss said all of the sudden, not looking at anyone in particular.

It hadn’t been said aggressively, and perhaps that’s why Yang’s hand quickly relaxed to her sides despite her obvious disbelief at the hurtful comment. Rather, the heiress was looking at the ground and holding the bridge of her nose, mumbling under her breath and visibly trying to come to terms with the latest development.

“You can’t have two different soulmates. It doesn’t work like that… does it?” she raised a questioning eye on all three of them, who could do little besides shrug.

“Maybe you can? Or maybe not?” Yang tried. “I mean, I didn’t know you could make yourself a soulmate before… So either we don’t really know crap about soulmates, either Adam was not really Blake’s soulmate, so Ruby is?”

“That… actually makes sense.” Weiss mused for a little while, and her hand flew every now and then to the pristine eyepatch embroidered with her family’s logo. “I just- I trust you, but I just want to check…”

“What do you mean?” Yang said softly, stopping her from scratching at the scar that extended slightly past the white cover.

“I’m not supposed to show that…” she sighed, before almost ripping the eyepatch away. “Damn it, I said I trust you and I do.”

No one answered as they all stared at the heiress now uncovered eye with more or less shock. It was indeed quite unusual, and Blake was sure that even through a black and white view it would have caught many eyes. But to her, seeing it was simply flooring –

The sclera was dark, almost black, and oddly shaped veins seemed to extend from it alongside Weiss’s vertical scar. It had an overall… uncanny, almost metallic aspect? But what was truly bugging her was the multiple colours she could see in the iris. Red and golden on the upper-left part, sort of bleeding into one another in strange nuances, some of which were still looking grey, and a bright blue at the bottom. It took her some time more to realize that it probably was sporting all of the existing colours and that she simply couldn’t see them all yet.

“Wow. That’s…”

“Weird? I know. Schnee technology,” she sighed. “This thing here lets me see Aura, more specifically Aura colour. When someone has a soulmate, there’s a parcel of the soulmate’s aura among theirs.”

“That sounds super cool!” Ruby exclaimed, looking at her partner with stars in her eyes.

“Yes and no. The reason I wear the eyepatch is that it only sees Aura and almost nothing else. It doesn’t care if there’s walls or anything between me and the Aura, it will see it. And it just so happens that human brains aren’t made for that, so it gives me major headaches if it’s uncovered for too long.” She then muttered, almost inaudibly. “And I never asked for it.”

“Yikes. You’re sure you want to do this Weiss?”

That had been Yang, as she wrapped her hands around the heiress’ shaking one, nothing but concern for her teammate.

“I’ll be fine. I just have to check. It always worked so far, but I guess I never got a good look at both of you before.” She vaguely gestured at Blake and Ruby. “Because I certainly never noticed until now.”

“What do you mean? They’ve only just started seeing colours, so you wouldn’t have seen anything before, would you?”

“I would actually,” She nodded. “The thing with the whole Aura parcel happens a lot earlier than the people seeing colour. I’ve seen it in babies sometimes. It’s something that happens as soon as you meet the soulmate while seeing colours can take a while longer.”

A brief nod, a worried glance from Blake, and Weiss turned toward Ruby. She looked at her for a few seconds, the young leader squirming under the pointed glare, and furrowed her brows deeper and deeper.

“Is there something wrong?” Blake hazarded, worry clawing at her with each passing second.

“No, no, not really. Something is a bit odd but there’s nothing wrong, there’s a bit of purple in Ruby’s red Aura.” She glanced at her. “Which is your Aura colour, by the way.”

“So everything is fine!” Yang clapped her hands loudly, a bit too loudly in fact.

Just like her smile felt a bit too big. Ignoring her, Weiss abruptly turned her full attention to Blake, and it was the bookworm’s turn to squirm. Something about knowing that Weiss could see her Aura, see her soul… something unnerved her. Not to mention the sharp realisation that if Weiss truly could see soulmates… would she see that red wasn’t the only colour Blake had abruptly noticed? Would she see the golden of Yang’s mane? Would she see… her own light blue?

Nervousness rising and rising, Blake had all the troubles in the world sitting still on the window side, hoping without truly believing that she wouldn’t see a thing. As Weiss’s brow furrowed even more, she felt that last hope fly far away. The heiress crossed her arms, opened her mouth, then closed it, before turning to Yang, eyeing her with the same intensity she had her two other teammates.

“Whoa there Snowflake, trying to see if you missed something in my Aura too?” her tone was somewhere between joking and teasing, but she had taken a step back, visibly concerned.

“I’ll be damned,” Weiss muttered under her breath.

She did a double-take, her altered eye focusing on all three of them one after the other before she abruptly sat in the nearby desk chair. Although ‘crashed’ would have been a more appropriate word, considering the force with which she found herself in the chair, the poor furniture scraping the floor a little as it was pushed slightly back in the movement.

“Are you alright?”

As often, Yang had voiced everyone’s concern, and all three of them exchanged a quick glance. Although Blake had a slight hunch on what her teammate had seen, there seemed to be something else. Both in the gleam of Ruby’s eyes and in the way she had eyed all three of them, she felt like there was something else she didn’t quite get.

“You really have no idea, do you?” the smaller of them said softly, specifically looking at Yang.

“No idea? Of what? What’s happening Snowflake? I’m starting to get really worried…”

“There must be a problem. But it doesn’t make sense, if there truly was something wrong with the tech I wouldn’t see anything, it wouldn’t show me… that. Okay. Less panic, more explaining, Weiss, calm down.” She slowly raised her head to look at them, the eyepatch back in its usual place, and pursued with a much more audible voice. “How to say that… I really feel like this isn’t my place to say anything. Let’s be practical. Someone can have more than one soulmate.”

“Oh. That’s it? That has been bugging you that much?” Yang instantly relaxed, not noticing how Blake had tensed.

“Oh this is going to be a headache…” the heiress muttered, before sighing. “I wasn’t done, no. Apparently, someone can have more than one soulmate. At a time.”

An abrupt silence fell, a series of emotion passing on each and everyone’s face. Yang settled on confusion and hesitation, Ruby was smiling nervously and looking away. Blake was biting her lips, acutely aware that what all of them had understood from Weiss’ revelation.

“Really, none of you has something to say? I feel like I’m doing all the work here, and it doesn’t feel like I should be the one saying anything,” the heiress broke the silence with a pointed glare.

No one said anything for a little while more, alternatively exchanging glance and looking away. She was trying her best to muster the strength to say something, about the golden mane or the blue eye, say anything… She felt like, if anything, Weiss’ comment was directed at her. Reasonably, she wouldn’t be able to hide it any longer, but she was anything but reasonable right now. Not to mention the fact that Yang seemed truly clueless, which meant one of two things. Either she hadn’t paid attention, focused as she was on her teammates utterly freaking out in the past hour or so… Either she truly didn’t see it…

And she didn’t want to think about that second possibility. Not when it froze her blood with memories of how Adam had never seen any colours, of how she had convinced herself she was his soulmate when he clearly never was hers. It was just… too painful of a reminder, too frightening of an option.

“Yeah, about that…” Ruby’s sheepish voice startled them all out of their thoughts.

Blake in particular, was flabbergasted. She was so sure Weiss’ comment had been meant for her… She hadn’t even considered the possibility that it was addressed to Ruby as well. The heiress was nodding slowly, seemingly very relieved she wouldn’t have to tell the story herself, while Yang was, as usual for this afternoon, filled with concern.

“Purple… Purple’s not the only thing I see. Weiss, your eye looks different too.” Yang raised an eyebrow, and her sister immediately stammered. “Not the one that was under the eyepatch! I mean, that would be obvious, no I mean your right eye, I think it has a colour too, it’s..”

“Blue,” Blake muttered instinctively.

“How…?”

“It’s the same colour as the sky,” she added mechanically, before blushing furiously.

Yang’s head was swivelling from one to the other, looking like a deer caught in headlights and sputtering half-words incoherently. What was truly surprising was Weiss’ confusion.

“Blue? That doesn’t make sense. The motes in your Aura were grey, not blue.”

“Wait, so you both see blue. So you both also have a soulmate whose Aura is blue? Can it not be because you started seeing the rest of the colours earlier or something?” Yang tried, but all three others nodded negatively.

“The other colours only ever appear after a week, sometimes a month,” Ruby said softly.

“Besides, there is a second, distinct bit of Aura in both of them. Although it really should be grey…” Weiss muttered.

“I… may also be seeing another colour?”

“THREE? Jeez Blakey, you’re definitely not doing this whole soulmate deal halfway, are you?” There was a slight tremor to her voice, something that pained Blake immensely.

“Golden. It’s golden,” Weiss said flatly, waiting for Yang to understand.

Blake’s panic only grew when it didn’t seem to make her partner react. She suddenly wondered if the warm yellow of her hair really was Yang’s aura colour, or if she had made a terrible mistake. But she couldn’t be wrong. It simply didn’t make sense- not when the gold had bled in her vision before all others, not when it had been perfectly synchronized with a rush of affection for her muscular partner. Not when it had happened when she had admitted to herself she was falling in love with Yang.

The other two colours had surprised her a lot more, as she had thought previously that she simply trusted the rest of her team. Seeing blue had been an absolute shock, but she had quickly found it was linked with her growing fondness of the heiress, of the way she was always striving to be the best she could, even if it meant she had to put away her pride. The way she fought against all she had ever been taught, the ways she was furiously kind. Seeing red had jolted awake every single one of her instincts, but now that she was calm again, she could see that this red had nothing to do with the sick, dried blood on Adam’s clothes. It was warm, passionate, happy, just like their team leader.

She had, somehow, fallen for her entire team.

“Yang, you really didn’t notice a single change?” Weiss's voice rose again, sarcastically, sparking confusion in the tall warrior.

“What do you mean?”

“Look at the sky outside. Look at the fabric around your ankle. Are you sure nothing has changed?”

“No? Why should it?” she was doing as instructed, but still was somehow puzzled, failing to see the point.

“Because golden is your Aura colour, you dolt.” There was a fond, mocking smile on Weiss’s lips, as she was visibly very pleased of the situation. “And there’s purple in yours, as well as grey. Or blue? What I mean is that it’s the exact same tone as the other two here.”

“That… but… I don’t see anything different?”

“Really? How could you miss something like that? I mean, it must be quite a big deal!”

“Weiss… you… you probably shouldn’t mock Yang on that…” Ruby intervened despite her beet-red cheeks.

The heiress raised an eyebrow, visibly unimpressed and about to either ask why she shouldn’t do it or double down on her teasing. She didn’t have time to say anything, however, because Blake, drawing strength in Ruby’s attempt, decided it was time to tell the last bit.

“Weiss. Your Aura is blue.”

The silence fell once more, the heiress’ eye rounder than a saucepan and darting between all three of her teammates, all manners of coherent speech gone from her mind. It was, admittedly, pretty cute to see her go from smug and certain to utterly confused, and judging by Yang’s brief snort and Ruby’s small smile, Blake wasn’t the only one thinking that.

“But…” she sputtered, barely able to form a sentence. “But you three?”

They all exchanged a brief glance, and as awkward as the situation should have been, they all shrugged.

“Pretty much, yeah.” Blake finally said once her gaze had drifted back to Weiss.

“Congrats kitty cat, you broke Weiss!” she rolled her eyes at the finger guns Yang aimed at her, the brawler suddenly radiating with joy. “I mean, even I can see her blush!”

Weiss sputtered some more until she gave up speech entirely and stood up abruptly, slamming the door to their shared bathroom behind her. The three remaining girls exchanged another glance from their respective seating, unsure of what to do next. Ruby was swinging her legs, making her whole precariously suspended bed swing with her in the process. Yang was rubbing the back of her neck, suddenly finding the quilt of Blake’s bed very interesting. Blake herself was back to staring outside the window, one of her leg dangling from the edge.

“I’ve made everything awkward, haven’t I?” she muttered to no one in particular, sighing against the cold glass panels.

“Hey, don’t say that! It’s going to be a bit weird, that’s sure, but we’ll get used to it! Besides, if you hadn’t told anything, I would have. Eventually,” Ruby interrupted. “I… also think Weiss had the right idea taking some time by herself to think about this. I’m going for a run. See you two later!”

And with that, she was out the door, and probably already running through Beacon’s corridor, leaving countless rose petals behind her. Relative peace and silence settled, interrupted every now and then by Weiss’s muffled and unintelligible mutterings behind the door, while neither Yang nor Blake made a move to leave, both seemingly content to mull over what had happened right then and there.

Blake shot a brief glance at her partner in the reflection of the window, still very much caught in her own feelings and confusion, only to see her pained expression and the tear slowly straining down her cheek.

“Yang?” her head rose immediately, and she promptly erased all trace of sadness from her expression. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah!”

A beat. Blake got down from her spot on the windowsill, taking a few steps toward the blonde woman, intent on making sure she wouldn’t just put up a façade. Her concern must have been plain on her face, because Yang’s mask rapidly fell, revealing the bundle of nerves underneath.

“Not really. I just- it’s been a lot. This whole discussion I mean.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Blake offered softly, sitting beside her.

“I’m just having a hard time processing all of this.” She passed a hand through her hair, gaze forlorn. “I’ve gone through so many emotions, in so little time… It feels like I’m just numb now. I was worried when you panicked, then I got angry at this Adam for what he did to you. Then I was confused, I think I still am. And I’m not proud of it, but… I was hurt when Ruby told us she was seeing purple.”

She let out a pained, bitter chuckle, and swayed slightly as if she could fall apart without notice. Which, thinking about it, she was. It hurt, seeing her that utterly tired and defenceless when she had always been the team’s ray of sunshine, the joyful optimist. Without thinking, the Faunus brought herself closer, snaking her arm around Yang’s waist in wordless support. As if she had waited for exactly that to crumble, Yang’s eyes closed and she let her head fall and rest upon Blake’s shoulder.

“I’m a terrible sister. Ruby found her soulmate, and the only thing I could feel was hurt, because I…” she stopped for a second, if only to take a shuddering breath. “Because I love you. And after that, it was just more and more confused, and I just… I know what being soulmates mean, but… do you really love me?”

She felt her heart break under the sheer vulnerability of that last question. She couldn’t see Yang’s expression from where she was, yet the tremor in her voice and the slight shaking of her hands told the entire story.

“I really do. I love you, Yang.” It had been but a whisper, but her partner’s light chuckle told her that it had been heard.

“I’m a mess, am I not?” she chuckled once more, tiredly, before sighing. “Is it weird that I don’t really care if you also love Ruby and Weiss? I mean, not that I don’t care, I just… understand?”

“I don’t think it’s weird.” A small smile. “It’s, unexpected, but that could honestly be today’s title. It’s going to take some getting used to, for sure. But… I don’t know. We all love each other. We’ll figure it out, together.”

Neither of them had heard the door opening and closing, and neither of them heard Weiss until she was standing in front of them, expression conflicted but soft.

“I don’t… I mean, we’re soulmates, so obviously I do… But I can’t…”

“It’s okay Weiss, we get it. It’s… complicated.” Blake smiled softly, feeling her heart skip a beat when Weiss’ eyes lit up slightly. “We’ll figure something out.”

“Mmhm.” Yang’s muffled approval rose, her eyes barely open. “Now c’mere Snowflake, you need a hug.”

For a second, Blake thought she would protest, hesitate, maybe even run away. Instead, she simply sat at Yang’s right, and slowly, ever so slowly, leaned on her shoulder and let her eyes close themselves. Without skipping a beat, Blake delicately took the heiress’ hand with her own free, thoughtlessly rubbing soothing circles on the back of her palm. She spared half a thought to marvel about the incredible tints of the sky as the sun set, before feeling her own tiredness take over and her eyes close reluctantly.

**[…]**

“Hey, no fair! I want in on the group hug!”

Ruby’s voice resounded, falsely offended, mere seconds before her super-speed made her very suddenly part of the cuddle pile that was her team. Yang, apparently the only one still conscious, had caught her and somewhat cushioned the fall, but she could do little to prevent the entire group from tumbling over, haphazardly sprawled on the bed and laughing. Barely woken, Weiss rolled her eyes before wordlessly putting her arm around Ruby. Blake hadn’t even woken up.

Chuckling lightly, Ruby was simply happy.


End file.
